Broken Present
by Lily Martin
Summary: Love once and the dangers of doing it again are forever engraved in the mind. Some learn their lessons right away, but the ones that don't are broken. SarkOFC Updated, Season 4 spoilers
1. Broken Soul

**_Broken Present_**

**_By Lily Martin_**

**_Rated: R _****(The stuff that comes out of my head is rarely good)**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or its characters they belong to ABC and J.J. Abrams. I do own Ciel though and all of her stuff, plus the plot is mine and mine alone for this._**

**_Spoilers: Um...beginning of Season 3, after the episode they first lose Sark in. _**

**_Summary: Love once and the dangers of doing it again are forever engraved in the mind. They had been lovers pulled apart, he learned his lessen; she tried to find a way back to normalcy the rest of the world lives with. She is broken and alone, and bringing her back from the edge is a difficult thing. Sark/OFC_**

**_A/N: not much to say really, I don't except flames, just constructive criticism and/or unending praise._**

Chapter 1

He was not a happy man, as he walked through the halls of the small Italian villa towards the only room equipped for someone to sleep in, other than the parlor and library, both of which only had couches. He refused to call it _his _room that'd be like accepting his presence in the horrible place, the same reason he refused to call the place _his_, even though it was the place they'd given him. The leader of the Covenant had been trying to get him to join for a week now, but that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted something else. What that something was, he didn't know, all he knew was he wanted something besides more of the life that'd gotten him stuck in a glass box for two years. He had enough money to buy a house and stay comfortable for the rest of his days, no need to do anything for anyone but himself.

This time the man had only called him from the library (where he'd been catching up on his reading) to offer him a gift in return for his working for them, a gift he was on his way to the bedroom to make sure wouldn't kill him. The man had said he'd _like_ the gift, but he still didn't trust the man enough to believe he wouldn't attempt to kill him. He didn't trust anyone that much, at least no one that wasn't dead or he hadn't seen in almost a decade.

When he reached his door, his hand moved to the knife he'd taken from the kitchen earlier that week. They knew he took it, but they let him keep it anyways, without ever saying anything, he still knew they knew though. They were all armed; a knife wouldn't be of any help against someone with a gun, but he could get down to hand to hand combat with just himself when he had to.

He opened the door and slowly stepped in, holding his breath for a moment to listen. The room felt…strange, like someone had been there. It always felt that way though, so he wasn't fazed by that, but he heard breathing, no good spy would be breathing that noticeably. The room was dark even though it was the middle of the day; there were thick black out curtains at the two large windows when he'd gotten there, and he'd left them open, but now they were closed. They didn't want him to see his 'gift' right away.

He turned on the lamp by the door, and immediately took a look around. He didn't see anyone till he looked at the bed, large and surprisingly comfortable, he'd been careful to leave it made, but it was a mess when he came in. It wasn't more than a millisecond before he realized the large lump in the middle was someone, sound asleep beneath the covers.

Slowly, he pulled back the down comforter, revealing an angelic face he hadn't seen in a very long time. Dirty blonde hair fell loosely around her shoulder, a color on her he was unfamiliar with, her once round and rosy cheeks were gaunt and pale. She didn't look well, like she'd been sick, underfed, and hadn't had enough sleep for a long time. He could see the young woman he'd known years ago beneath this new face, and wondered for a moment what could do that to the happy, girl he'd been friends with growing up at the training facility they'd both been at.

He reached out and brushed a hair out of her face, she didn't stir one bit that wasn't anything like what he remembered of her. He remembered a time when all he had to do was slip an arm around her and she'd snap to attention from even the deepest of sleeps. _She must've been drugged_, he thought, as he went around opening the curtains to let the sunlight in. 

It was another hour before she woke up, and he used that time to think. He thought about many things, letting his mind wander wherever it felt. He'd started doing that while he was imprisoned, too much time by himself. He'd start thinking about one thing, this time it was remembering the time they'd been together, then his mind skipped to how she'd be angry with the information he shared, maybe even call him a traitor. Moving on to how he'd told the CIA everything, all about how he'd started training at the training facility at the age of seven, when the group he'd been trained by found out he was a prodigy. He'd told them about Alison, he'd told them everything, except about the woman now lying in his bead, any and all information about her was locked away in his mind, things that came back and replayed whenever he had time to think. Finally his thoughts found their way back to wondering where she'd been since he'd last seen her, and that thought was cut short quite early as she began to stir.

He watched the blankets move as she turned around. Her head almost immediately appeared from underneath the covers, as she went into action, she started taking inventory of her surroundings. Finally, after what felt like forever, her eyes settled on him.

"Jules," she whispered, her voice coming out horse and groggy, whatever drug they'd used was probably still affecting her, and probably would be for another half hour at the least.

"Em," he nodded once, coming over and sitting on the edge of the bed. 

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Venice," he said simply, as she sat up, letting the blanket fall from her.

She didn't appear surprised, only reached up and ran a hand over her arm, brining a bruise there to his attention. 

"What happened?" he asked, meaning both the bruise and the strain that was present in her face and in her posture.

"A lot's happened," she replied, bowing her head to look away from him, getting his double meaning.

He reached over and brushed the hair away from her face, and tilted her chin up, making her face him. Neither of them said anything, just watched the other. She tried feebly to smile, but ended up trying to look away, unable to, though, because of his hand still holding the side of her face gently.

"Emma," he said, his tone pushing her to tell him what happened.

"I found something past the job, a life," she started, pulling away from his hand, ducking her head away.

He could still see the pain in her features, the remembrance of happiness, the remorse over what was over, he'd only seen it once before on the face of an elderly gentleman who'd lived in the town he'd grown up. Up until now, he'd forgotten about that. The man had been in the military, and when he'd come back from service, he found out he's family had died in a fire, everything was gone. The look of a broken soul seeking the forgiveness no one can grant it.

"It was…normal, he didn't know anything about what I did, knew nothing about the training I'd gone through, he had absolutely no idea of anything I'd done. Everything was…perfect, it was right," she told him, as the memories began washing over her. "I met Richard three years after we left the_ school_. We met at this café we both went to."

She paused, sniffled a bit, and wiped her eyes. He'd only seen her cry once; it was because of something from a nightmare, which she'd woken up screaming from, what was in it she refused to tell him. She turned a way, not allowing him to see the tears running down her face before they dropped, where he could see them, on the white comforter.

"We'd dated an entire year, moved in with each other after nine months, he asked me to marry him, and I said, '_yes_.' I'm not sure it was _love_ per say, I cared for him deeply though, and that connection was there," she continued to say, trying to explain her feelings for Richard. "We got married in a small private ceremony shortly after. No one knew. After that I started working on getting out, our second anniversary came around and I was pregnant, we were both so happy, and when my bosses found out…it was amazing, they were never ones to be nice, but they had families of their own, so they knew what it felt like, what a miracle children were, something I could feel in my core almost right away. They gave me a year, put up security, and everything, it was…nice, some time away from everything.

"After that year off, I was stupid, I didn't want to come back, but I did what I had to, especially with the threat against my family there. For the next year I did what I could to get out, around the end of the year I found out I was pregnant again, we weren't really careful, no reason to be as far as Richard knew," she laughed nervously, a very short lived laugh. "I went to someone, sold the secrets I knew to an organization that could destroy the one I was currently working for. It was a stupid selfish move, but all I wanted was out, I wanted them destroyed so that I'd be free. I went traitor to our ultimate mission. I told them everything, leaving out only the details of _the_ _Endgame_; in exchange I was supposed to be left alone. The organization I was working for was gone within a month. The organization I sold the information to was the Covenant, I knew they wanted the organization I'd been working for gone…for good. Five months went by, everything was perfect, I was seven months pregnant and as big as a house, but everything truly was perfect, I felt safe for the first time since…since…"

She shook from the silent sobbing, refusing to let him hear them. Just as he remembered her, always trying to be strong, though now it seemed it was harder for her. Slowly, he moved closer to her and even more slowly pulled her into an embrace, careful not to move to quickly, lest she pull away, or worse yet, lash out at him. He tried to sooth her, running his hand up and down her back, and whispering things like: _'It's all right,' 'It's over now.'_ Those things that were meaningless yet meant everything, in their own strange way.

"The covenant was after more information, on another organization, one I knew nothing about, but they didn't believe me. They killed Richard one day while I was out taking Callie, my daughter, to the doctor's. When I returned home, they took Callie and I. They held us somewhere, I'm not sure where. They said, if I told them what I knew about something…some people…Lazarey and…and…a Julia Thorne and they wanted to know what exactly _the Endgame_ was. I wouldn't tell them anything. Callie was killed right in front of me. They tortured me; something they drugged me with caused me to miscarry. I've been sitting in a cell for the last rear, waiting to see if they'd finally get around to killing me," she continued, forcing herself to look up at him and meet his eyes with hers. "You must think I'm a traitor."

"No, not really, because what I myself have done could be considered worse and none of my reasons could even once truly be considered good," he replied after a moment's pause.

She pulled away, sat back enough to see him fully, and stared at him, appearing confused _almost_. "Not you, Jules, never you." She ran a hand gently down the side of his face, letting it rest there, as he had done with her. "I don't believe it."

"For the past two years, I've been in the custody of the CIA, over that time, I told them almost everything," _'almost meaning I didn't tell them about you,'_ he added silently, letting no evidence of the thought cross his external appearances, he had no reason to tell her that, not yet anyways. "I told them about _the Endgame_, everything about it."

"I know you said we're in Venice, but do you happen to know where in Venice?" she asked, changing subjects like the flip of a switch.

"No, all I know so far is that we're in a Covenant safe house in Venice," he told her.

"They're listening to us," she whispered, leaning close to him.

"And watching, most likely," he added in a whisper, leaning in right next to her ear.

She let her eyes close and breathed in deeply.

"Someone's always watching," she whispered back.

"Always have been," he whispered.

"Always will be," she continued.

"No matter where we go…"

"They'll always be watching…"

"Always be waiting…"

"Forever we stand…"

"United as…" the words fumbled in her mouth she couldn't have said it even if she weren't unsure of herself.

"As _two_," he finished for her.

"Wow, it's been forever since we said that," she laughed. "God, the last time had to be…"

"Just before we got our assignments," he remembered, laughing lightly.

"Yeah, it's weird though, us saying Allie's parts," she commented. "Whatever happened to her, you guys were sent the same way weren't you?"

"She died, two years ago, just after I was captured," he told her.

"Same day?" she asked, wondering if they were on the same mission.

"No idea, we were on different missions at the time," he replied, getting her underlying question.

"So…how long have you been here?" she asked after a moment.

"Almost a week, the Covenant has been trying to get me to join them," he told her.

"I guess that explains part of what I'm doing here," she said.

"That's exactly why you're here it seems, they told me I had a _gift_ in my room that's when I found you," he explained.

"What am I supposed to be your play toy or something?" she smiled temptingly.

"Doesn't sound too bad," he smirked.

He leaned down and kissed her, pulling her close. Suddenly, she leaned back, pulling him over her lying on the pile of pillows.

"I just got very dizzy," she said, pulling out of his embrace.

He sat up, giving her room to breathe. She laughed and smiled. Kissing him gently, she pulled him back towards her. Pulling away from their kiss, he kissed her along the jaw, before slowly moving down her neck. He stopped to pull the thin grey material that was covering her from him over her head, before working his way down to her bosom.

"How big is this place, anyways? Is it nice?" she asked, several hours later, resting her head on his chest.

"Not too big, nice enough for a prison," he replied, slipping an arm around her.

"Ok, what about food? There's more than plenty of food here, right? Is it decent food?" she asked.

"Last I checked, on all counts. Why are you asking so many questions?" he questioned her back.

"Don't tell me you didn't have questions like these running through your head, when you got out. I mean, I've been in a box for a year, I haven't had enough food and none of it was even relatively good. I just want to know if I've come into something slightly better," she explained.

"For the time being you have," he told her, letting her entwine her hand with his.

"Good, lets hope it lasts," she said before going to sleep, feeling the comfort of a real bed for the first time in a year, glad that her friend was there with her.

When she woke up again, he was in the process of getting dressed.

"I was going to go make dinner," he answered the question she was just about to ask, knowing she was awake without even looking at her.

"Without waking me?" she pouted, playfully.

"You looked like you could use the sleep," he replied honestly, there wasn't any point in lying it wouldn't come out sounding the way he'd want anyways.

"Hey," she said in mock hurt, throwing one of the large pillows at him.

"I'm just saying, as long as I've got you, there won't be much time for you to sleep," he answered cheekily, picking up the pillow, preparing to use it for defense if she decided to go after him with another pillow.

She did throw another pillow and he batted it away with the pillow he already had. Before she had a chance to throw yet another, he moved over to the bed and leaned down, catching her lips in a hungry kiss, which she quickly reciprocated. He let one hand weave its way through her hair, the other at her side, his thumb running over her hardened nipple. 

Her stomach grumbled, and she laughed, "Maybe we could go get something to eat first, it's been a while since I've been truly full."

"Of course," he smirked, though only slightly, as he walked over to the dresser in the room and tossed her one of his shirts and a pair of pants.

"Thanks," she smirked right back, getting out of bed, pulling the clothes he'd tossed her on before he could see anything.

The next twenty-four hours passed like a dream, seeming to take forever to pass, while at the same time not lasting long enough. They were once again in the bedroom when the knock came at the door, and he was called to the living room through the thick door.

As he was led to living room, Emma was led to the dinning room by another man. She was dressed once again in her _friend_'s clothing, as it was the only clothing she had, besides the remnants of black (gray) fabric she'd worn while imprisoned. She was led to the end of the table, on which there was only one place set.

When he walked into the living room, Ushek was sitting behind the desk and a television had been set up. It was a moment before Ushek acknowledged that he was even there, and when he did, there was something in his eyes, a spark of hatred or something to that effect; the man's mask was slipping.

"I see you have _enjoyed_ your gift," Ushek said, allowing his disgust to fill his words. "If you wish to keep said gift, you'll join us, as I have requested before, otherwise…" he trailed off, picking up a remote next to his hand and turning on the television, where Sark could see Emma being held at gunpoint.

"No matter how evil I believed you to be, I never believed you were the type to trade in slaves," he said, in his careful disgusted drawl.

"Only when necessary," was Ushek's simple reply. "Now, what is your answer?"

He took another look at the television, which showed Emma sitting at the table staring intently at the gun. He nodded once, and the silent agreement was made. Ushek picked up a cell phone and said two words into it, "Stand down." The guard put his gun away and another, who was also putting his gun away, stepped into view as they crossed past the camera on their way out of the room. 

Without another word he left the library and went to the dinning room, where another place had been set in the time it took him to walk down the hall. When he came into the room, she was already hesitantly picking at her heavily piled plate. She stopped eating when he came in and he kissed her gently on the lips before he sat down in front of his own full plate. They ate in silence, their hands finding the other's beneath the table. Every now and then they'd exchange glances, away of reassuring themselves that the other was actually real.

TBC…


	2. Subconscious Remembrance

**_Broken Present_**

**_By Lily Martin_**

**_Rated: R _****(The stuff that comes out of my head is rarely good)**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or its characters they belong to ABC and J.J. Abrams. I do own Ciel though and all of her stuff, plus the plot is mine and mine alone for this._**

**_Spoilers: _**

**_Summary: Love once and the dangers of doing it again are forever engraved in the mind. They had been lovers pulled apart, he learned his lessen; she tried to find a way back to normalcy the rest of the world lives with. She is broken and alone, and bringing her back from the edge is a difficult thing. Sark/OFC_**

**_A/N: I wasn't really sure how far I'd go with this, still not, but because I haven't been talking about it with anyone it's coming a lot easier than the stories that I talked out, even though those ones had a more complete plot._**

Chapter 2: Subconscious Remembrance

She was walking down a hallway, it didn't seem familiar, but she knew where she was going. There was only one door in the entire hallway, and that was her destination, that was where her answers were. The hallway was empty, it always was, but within seconds another woman came running down the hall, pushing past her without a thought, running towards that door that always seemed to get farther away than it was originally. 

"This isn't your door, stay back, let me do this," the dirty-blond haired woman told her, before running what seemed like miles ahead down the hall. 

Just like always she woke up at this point, covered in a thin layer of cold sweat, her brown hair hanging a mess in her face. She'd been having that dream at least every other day since she'd come back from Hong Kong. There was something about that hallway, that woman, they both seemed familiar, but like everything about the last two years, she couldn't remember anything.

Her days had been uncomfortable at the very least, depression on the worst days, though she'd hidden all her emotions, anything that would enforce the fact that everyone believed something was wrong with her. She couldn't have that happening or she'd be taken out of active duty with the CIA, the only thing that actually kept her getting up in the morning, that and her only friend's helpful shoulder.

This time though she remembered the dream, usually she forgot everything until the dream came back and only knew she'd had the same dream as before when she woke up, not what had happened _in_ the dream. The woman's face was clear in her mind. She'd see if she could find out who the woman was in the morning, the CIA's database might have had something on her.

Sleep didn't come back easily to her; her mind wandered to the man she loved, the one who'd given up on her. She forced herself to think about something else. 

The CIA's loss of the _terrorist_ she'd helped catch only two years before flitted into her line of thought. It made her angry how the man from the NSC had lost them someone who was most likely the best source of information on the Covenant they'd had their hands on.

Sometime not long after those angry thoughts, she drifted off to sleep, only to be woken up, what seemed like minutes later, though the alarm clock read '8:30.' She shook her head glaring at the alarm clock, it was off, she'd forgotten to reset it the night before.

She got up and dressed quickly, grabbing something to eat on her way out. When she arrived at the CIA building, she immediately found her father, who was talking to the director.

"Hello, Sydney," her father said, when she joined them.

"Hi, Sydney," her boss nodded once, a grim smile present on his face.

"Dad, Dixon," she nodded once at each in turn. Then, going purely by the looks on their faces, she asked, "What's going on?"

"Sark is working for the Covenant. We'd found out about the Covenant picking up something we sent several agents in to intercept and bring the package back to us. Sark and an another agent got away with the package," her father told her.

"What was in the package?" she asked, slipping easily into 'agent mode,' the 'mode' she was most comfortable in.

"We don't know," Dixon said simply, as the three of them started walking towards one of the conference rooms they used for briefings.

It occurred to her that he'd already called together a team for the next move, and as he held the door open for she and her father, that she was supposed to be there and no one had bothered to tell her.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Dixon proceeded to tell them exactly what she'd just been told. After he finished, he clicked a button on the remote on the table in front of him and a picture of the woman from her dream appeared on every monitor in the room.

"Emma Walker," Dixon started, as they all looked at the picture of the woman holding a small child in her arms. "She used to work for Malachi Thoreau, head of Malachi Industries."

This must've been a cure for her father to start talking, because Dixon sat down and he stood up.

"Malachi Industries was a front for Thoreau's operations; Thoreau bought and sold secrets, weapons, even people occasionally, on the black market. Walker was within his inner circle, she was usually the one to steal the information for him, he never did anything himself," her father picked up with ease. "From what information we've picked up, almost two years ago, Walker grew tired of her job, and sold the information she had to the Covenant in exchange for her freedom from that kind of a life.

"Malachi Industries was destroyed and within a year she was taken prisoner by the Covenant. She's been missing for the past year, supposedly under their control," he finished, taking his seat, as Dixon stood up again.

"Our sources have told us that there will be another package pick up on Saturday in Madrid. Sydney, I want you to go in," Dixon told her, before going into more detail, with Marshall standing up once he'd finished to tell her about her gear.

The job would be easy, at least it was supposed to be, just a simple in and out, but with Sark working with someone else, she wasn't sure what to expect from them.

TBC…


	3. First Meetings

**_Broken Present_**

**_By Lily Martin_**

**_Rated: R (_the stuff that comes out of my head is rarely good)**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or its characters, they belong to ABC and J.J. Abrams. I do own Emma (been calling her Ciel in previous disclaimers, that _was_ going to be her name but I used that name for another character in another story) and all of her stuff, plus the plot is totally original and mine, so please, don't steal it, I've started noticing people filching small clips of my plots lately. The thing at the beginning is from "Without You" from Default_**

**_Spoilers: I really don't know…I'll find out eventually._**

**_Summary: Love once and the dangers of doing it again are forever engraved in the mind. They had been lovers pulled apart, he learned his lesson; she tried to find a way back to normalcy the rest of the world lives with. She is broken and alone, and bringing her back from the edge is a difficult thing. Sark/OFC_**

A/N: I shouldn't be working on this story, I should be working on my BTVS x-over, but I have the next couple of chapters plotted out in my head, and this chapter written, so I have to. 

**_Feedback: I want to thank:_**

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**_ Jen: love your review, it adds to my slowly growing ego. I couldn't stop myself from giving _****_Sark_****_ a back story; I've attempted it before, and most of them have come out horribly, lol. I'm an OC writer, I rarely write a story without putting in an OC, I'm sad that way, but the Alias section has a serious lack of OCs, so I couldn't help but try and fix that, lol. I know you didn't accuse me of making her too much like Sydney, but I've just got to add that while she is like Sydney in her need to have a normal life, she's gone through different experiences, so she's still her own person, while having a similar determination to Sydney's own. Yea, I know most of that was unnecessary, but I just like to reply to my reviews._**

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**Chapter 3: First Meetings**

***When most would fade away,**

**It's my thoughts of you that stayed,**

**There is no place to run to**

**If I lost this view.*******

**-Default "Without You"**

She was gone. After spending a week with him, she'd left for Rome, leaving him with only the number to her house there, where he could call her for any jobs, or if he just wanted to talk. She'd called it "one of those 'whatever' things."

Everything was coming back not that she was around again. He couldn't pull the 'no emotions' thing with her. They'd known each other too long for something like that to work.

He was eight when he met her. He'd been moved into a training facility by then, and the group he'd been in was moved to the same facility she was at after only a few months.

_After being show to the rooms they were going to occupy for the next ten years (though they'd been told that if they were good at what they did, they'd be moved into better and better rooms), they'd been given only a few minutes to get to the dinning room, where lunch was already being served._

_He'd been smart enough to memorize the entire place the first (and only) time they were shown around the floors they were allowed on, more than a few of the other kids hadn't and didn't know where they were supposed to be going for lunch. He didn't bother to help them, every kid for themselves, as he'd already learned in the few months since he'd been taken away from his family. It was at least ten minutes after he'd gotten there that the others in his training group arrived._

_When he got there, there was a short line of children walking into another room and coming out another door with a tray of food. The dinning room itself was a large room filled with at least thirty round tables with eight chairs at each. He was obviously part of the youngest group at only eight-years-old. He could see children from eight to fourteen sitting at the tables eating, and sometimes going from one table to another talking to friends._

_He assumed that he was at a boarding school of some kind, though clearly not a normal one. Everyone seemed to know each other, like they'd been there awhile, and so most of the tables were mostly full or completely empty, except for one table with a girl his age sitting alone. He went over to her, carrying his tray at chest level, careful not to crash into anyone or trip._

_"I'm not moving," she said bluntly, the moment he reached her. "You can't make me, there are plenty of empty tables."_

_Even as she said it though, more students came in and filled all but her table. They were bigger, older, the groups over fourteen, and he didn't really want to attempt to try and sit with them._

_"I wasn't going to ask you to move," he told her after a moment, placing his tray on the table._

_"Of course you weren't, you were going to _try_ to force me to move," she replied, not even bothering to look at him as she continued eating._

_"I wasn't going to force you to move," he said simply, sitting down two seats away from her._

_"Didn't say you _would_, I said you'd _try_," she stated, glaring at him as she sat up to her full height, which was quite a bit smaller than himself, though she pulled off a pretty good intimidating look that would have phased him, had he been planning on doing anything. "It's the popular sport amongst you new ones, try and force me to move to impress everyone else."_

_"I wasn't going to _try_ to force you to move either," he told her indignantly, letting her know by his tone and posture that he knew he could take her if he had to. "Anyways, my name is Julian."_

_"I'm Emma, and you would've eventually," she said simply, before pointing at a rather large boy that was coming towards them, he remembered the boy from being in his group, "he's going to."_

_Sure enough, the boy came over and spun her chair around so that she was facing away from the table. The boy grabbed the front of the uniform blouse she wore and pulled her to her feet. Something in her posture, her attitude, let everyone clearly know that she was _letting_ the boy do this, and everyone who was watching, which was practically the entire room, knew that she wouldn't take it for long._

_But the snapping point everyone had been waiting for never came, instead one of the fifteen-year-olds that had come in took its place._

_"You'd do best to take your hands off of her," the older boy said, standing behind the one picking on her._

_"And why's that?" the younger boy asked stupidly, turning around slowly, letting go of Emma's shirt._

_"Because, we don't take kindly to kids picking on Darren's little sis," another boy about the same age as the other said, coming up from the side._

_"Tha' an' we cin beat the shit outta ye, so blow off," a third boy with a strong accent said, coming up from the other side, surrounding the smaller boy, if Emma, with her hands crossed over her chest, counted as a side._

_The kid slipped past the one he assumed was Darren, and the three older boys sat down at the table on the opposite side from Julian. The girl took her seat again and picked up two of the four cookies out of her brown bag. Looking down at his own tray, he saw that he only had one._

_"Cass told me to give these to you, said you'd come and got your lunch this morning and they weren't ready then," she said, handing the two cookies over to 'Darren.'_

_"Thanks, she told me she'd have you get them to me," Darren told her, pulling a brown paper bag out of his pack._

_"I know, if I didn't, I might've tried to keep them, Cass knows that," she replied biting into her sandwich._

_"You gonna give your new friend one?" Darren asked teasingly._

_"I don't have friends, I know how to follow orders," she snapped._

_"Oh, yea, well, if you've been following orders so well, why didn't you stop that kid before I had to step in?" Darren growled back._

_"If you didn't _always_ step in, I'd be able to make it clear to _every_one at _one_ time that they shouldn't mess with me, but you do step in, and I have to take care of things one on one," she hissed. "Anyways, we have to be at the shooting range right now."_

_With that the two of them stood up and left, taking the brown bags that had contained their lunches with them, along with obviously heavy black backpacks._

_"So, who're you?" the boy with the accent asked._

_"Julian Ma—" he started to tell him, using his original name, still not used to the name he'd been given three months before._

_"Code names please, they're easier to research, like I'm __Rhodes__, my first name is Adam, so I'm Adam Rhodes, eventually you'll forget your original surname," the other boy told him._

_"An' I'm Holden Aarons," the first one to speak said, throwing in a nod of his head. "So, again, who are you?"_

_"Julian Sark," he told them, also throwing in a nod, fighting the urge to offer and handshake, instead keeping this hands stationary as they had done._

**_~*~_**

"Harder, Emma," a man at least eight years older than her commanded, holding up pads for her to punch as he kept moving.

"Darren, I can't do it, I'm worn out, I haven't done this in over a year," she snapped, shaking her hands out and breathing heavily.

"Of course you can, I know you, I know what you can do," he told her in a stern older brother tone. "You need to get back into the swing of things, the _Endgame_ needs you."

"I am back into the swing of things, just a _little_ out of shape," she glared, before sending a surprise roundhouse at one of the pads, pushing him backwards. "Now, when can I get a break?"

"Fine, get some water, but I want you back here in five minutes," he relented, taking the pads off of his forearms.

They climbed the stairs out of the basement turned training room of her home in Rome silently. Silence had filled much of the time since he'd joined her there several days before. He'd already brought her up to date with what was going on within the _Endgame_, though he hadn't said a thing, he'd given her the material, saying it aloud wouldn't be   safe, even though he'd already set up more than enough anti-bugging devises throughout the house. She quickly committed everything to memory and burned the papers, making sure they were completely destroyed.

They came from the stairs right into the kitchen. She immediately went to the fridge, while he went and sat down at the table as she poured two glasses of water. The silence continued, the only sounds in the room were the ticking of the clock on the wall and the refrigerator's motor. The phone hanging on the wall beside the clock rang, and she almost jumped a mile in the air. 

"Hello," she said, picking up the phone, keeping her tone neutral, though Darren was standing there beside, keeping a comforting hand on her right shoulder blade.

_"Emma, is everything alright?"_

"Everything's fine," she replied, calming instantly, giving her brother a reassuring smile, before walking out of the room with the cordless phone.

_"You sound strange, like something's wrong."_

"I'm just tired; I started up a training regimen with Darren the other day. I'm still a little out of shape," she laughed lightly.

_"Not too out of shape to take on anymore jobs, are you?"_

"Why, do you have a job for me?" she asked, glancing at Darren through the doorway, watching him stare out the window above the sink, knowing he was listening to everything she said.

_"I just might, if you can handle it."_

"Don't test me, I've got a tendency to attack people who mess with me too much," she said warningly.

_"Don't you think I now that?" after he said that there was a small bit of laughter._

"Good, I was starting to worry," she joked, laughing lightly. "So what's the new job?"

_"I'll call you next week; they need us to pick something up. I'll know more when I call you."_

"Alright," she said, before they both hung up.

~*~*~

**A/N: **I'm happy right now, I'm definitely going away to boarding school, I got this chapter done in less than twenty four hours, and I got my first paycheck today. Hope you liked this chapter, it wasn't anything amazing, I know, but there should be more in the next chapters on the training facility. I feel like you guys kind of _have_ to know how Emma and Sark know one another. On a final note, I'm sad, I want my Julian back; I don't like him being with the evil blond bimbo. So, if anyone asks, Julian Sark is mine and anyone who disagrees is crazy.


	4. Old Memories, Strange Moments

**_Broken Present_**

**_By Lily Martin_**

**_Rated: R (_the stuff that comes out of my head is rarely good)**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or its characters, they belong to ABC and J.J. Abrams. I do own Emma and all of her stuff, plus the plot is totally original and mine, so please, don't steal it, I've started noticing people filching small clips of my plots lately. _**

**_Spoilers: After that episode when _****_Sark_****_'s taken by the Covenant and they get his 800 million dollars, not sure of the episode name, I'll track it down eventually_**

**_Summary: Love once and the dangers of doing it again are forever engraved in the mind. They had been lovers pulled apart, he learned his lesson; she tried to find a way back to normalcy the rest of the world lives with. She is broken and alone, and bringing her back from the edge is a difficult thing. Sark/OFC_**

A/N: I shouldn't be working on this story, I should be working on my BTVS x-over, but I have the next couple of chapters plotted out in my head, and this chapter written, so I have to.

**_Feedback: I want to thank:_**

****

**_ Jen: yay! More nice review, I'm very happy, if not very achy (work). ^_^_**

**Chapter 4: Old Memories, Strange Moments**

"The pickup's been changed, it was changed at the last moment by Ushek San`ko," Dixon told the group gathered in the debriefing room. "Sydney, Vaughn, the two of you will be heading to Tuscany in an hour, your flight's in an hour. You'll be briefed on the plane."

No one was happy, everyone's patience was being tried, and it didn't help matters that they didn't know _why_ San`ko had requested the change, but someone did, and boy was she pissed when she found out.

_"Why the hell did he do that?"_

"He was…quiet when I told him you were coming along, said something about having to fix the pickup arrangements, and hung up," Sark told her, ready to pull the phone away from his ear in case she started yelling again.

_"It's me, he's trying to torture me. Emotional torture is so much more fun than physical torture."_

"You're being paranoid," he told her bluntly.

_"And why shouldn't I?"_

"Because it's not like you to be paranoid over things."

_"I've changed, we both have."_

"I've noticed," he replied simply, a moment later there was a click and the dial tone. Hanging up the phone on its base, he swore under his breath, "Damn it…"

~*~

No matter how angry she was about the change, she showed up in Tuscany the night before the meet, just as she was supposed to. When Sark met up with her, her face was a mask of pure professionalism. 

"How are you?" he asked, sitting down across from her.

"Fine, you?" she replied, taking a sip of her wine.

"All right," he drawled, refraining from comment on her lie. "If you're having problems with tomorrow's job, I could do it alone."

"No," she glared, angry that he was saying that all over again.

"Alright, then get over whatever stick is shoved up your ass," Julian told her, giving a perfectly calm expression, as though he'd been talking about the menu he'd just opened.

"You did _not_ just say that," she said, fighting and failing to hold back the urge to laugh.

"Did so, and I'll say it again if I must, but I'd rather not, and the consequences of me saying so could be horrific," he answered, completely seriously.

"Yea, right," she _giggled_, making him laugh lightly.

**Several Moments Earlier…**

"You don't mind getting something to eat?" Sydney asked Michael, as he pulled their car into a place outside the restaurant near the hotel they were staying in.

"Not at all, I was getting hungry anyways," Michael nodded once, taking the key out of the ignition and getting out of the car.

"Please follow me," the hostess told them in her fluent Italian, leading them through the main room, which was quite full of customers, and into another room.

The room was slightly smaller, though just as full, she led them strait towards the back of the room, quickly, most of the patrons didn't even see them, and for that they'd be thankful several seconds later.

"…stick is shoved up your ass," they heard a familiar voice saying as they took their seats, both turned carefully towards the seat, hoping they indeed hadn't been noticed.

"You did _not_ just say that," the woman sitting across from him laughed.

Sydney recognized her instantly, tuning out what they were saying, knowing Michael would memorize anything important they said. Instead she focused on what they were doing, laughing, both of them were, after she said something else in response to something he'd said. It was so…strange, for the first time since she'd first seen him, Sark was acting _human_. He wasn't a machine, not anymore, he was a person talking and laughing over drinks with a friend.

**Across the room…**

"You remember when I called you last week?" he asked, before taking a sip of the wine he'd poured for himself from the bottle on ice beside the table.

"Yes, of course," her smile faltering.

"I had wanted to mention that I'd been thinking about when we first met, but I didn't get the chance," he told her.

"Well look at that, you just mentioned it," she smiled, relieved that he wasn't going to push the 'how are you doing' thing. "I remember that, that was a really funny day."

"I don't remember thinking that, you were pretty intimidating as an eight-year-old, and it didn't help that your brother and his friends were always threatening to 'beat me within an inch of my life' as they always said," he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, come on, you know you loved the extra cookies at lunch," she laugh lightly, remembering 'back in the day.'

_"__Sark__," Darren called, catching up with the now fifteen-year-old Julian, as he crossed the campus towards the shooting range._

_"Yes, __Walker__?" he asked, glaring at the twenty-two-year-old, though continuing to walk._

_"How's Em doing?" Darren asked, walking alongside Julian._

_"You should ask her, not me, she'd kill me if I answered for her," was Julian's snapped remark._

_"Hey, watch it kid, I'm still older you, and now officially one of your superiors," Darren snapped right back._

_Julian let out a low growl, but was wise and didn't reply._

_"I'll ask you again, how's Em?" Darren asked, ignoring the teen's anger._

_"She's fine, if not angry, mostly at you, even Allison's actually noticing something, and she _never_ notices anything that has to do with Em," Julian finally told him._

_"Yea, I did kind of mess up with that, what about everything else?"_

_"She and Allison finally came to a truce, it's almost scary, like looking at a ticking bomb and not being able to disarm it."_

_Darren chuckled, but otherwise stayed quiet and let Julian continue._

_"She almost killed __Rutherford__ yesterday."_

_"I heard about that, still haven't heard any true story behind it. What happened exactly?"_

_"I can't tell you, she'd never forgive me."_

_"Oh, come one, it can be our little secret."_

_"Little my arse," Julian quipped, rolling his eyes at the man's complete lack of sense when it came to Emma._

_"Ok, fine, I order you to tell me."_

_"You haven't got enough on me to make that one work."_

_"I'll tell Em what you told me last month. You know, about her liking someone."_

_"Fine, I'll tell you, just don't mention that last thing ever again."_

_"Deal."___

_"Hemadefunofherhair."___

_"What was that?" Darren asked, seeing Julian's obvious discomfort at telling his friend's secret._

_"He.__ Made. Fun. Of. Her. Hair." Julian repeated._

_"Thanks, oh, and you caved much too soon," Darren told him, stopping where the sidewalk branched off two different ways. "That'll demote you a few points when I start filing my reports today. Also, you know the other deal, the one where you hurt my sister and I'll beat you within an inch of your life?"_

_"How could I forget it, you're always so kind to remind me," Julian glared._

_"Yea, well, _don't_ forget it, I've seen you two lately, tread carefully," Darren warned._

_Julian growled and kept going to the left, leaving Darren to go the other way or back where they came from._

"Why didn't you ever tell me about that?" Emma laughed, as Julian finished telling her about her brother and his evil ways.

"I just did, didn't I?" he smirked. 

TBC…

~*~*~*~*~*~

A/N: hey, if my constant changing between using Sark and Julian is bugging you, let me explain. I use Sark when he's in kind of a work mode, but when he relaxes down to the point where he's a human being, I call him Julian, cause he's more of a human with that name (at least to me).


	5. Fights and Flights

**A/N: I thought this had died, but I guess I was wrong, the spoiler is pretty old, check the previous chapters, cause I'm not bothering with that heading thing any more. It's too tiring to try and remember it.**

She stood in the small town of Lucca in Tuscany, camera clutched tightly in her hand as she took photos of the old buildings. She loved Italy. She specifically loved Lucca above all, while Italy had been her favorite of all countries for its beautiful scenery and wonderful cities: Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan. She loved Lucca because her husband proposed to her there, she'd told him of their first child there, and nothing bad had ever happened to her there. He'd told her she'd always be safe there, and she was.

Looking the part of the stranger wasn't hard there, designer jeans and black leather boots plus the Ralph Lauren polo T were definitely not the style of the locals. She'd never really cared about what those around her wore, not when she just wanted a few pictures of the place she loved most.

Quickly, she adjusted her earphones in her ears, then her finger strayed to the ipod they were attached to and made sure its volume was at a preferable level. She slipped her sunglasses back down over her eyes the moment she lowered her camera. Then, straightening her hat, she continued to walk down the street. Her walk was slow and leisurely, she didn't have to get anywhere fast. The person that walked by her was another question, however. They went by so quickly, they nearly walked right into her, only her keen sense and fast movement had prevented them from touching her at all. She didn't like it when strangers touched her, nothing good could come of it, but they hadn't tried anything, just continued on by her. Her camera hung loosely around her neck, and it wasn't until the person that had almost walked into her started walking around a corner further ahead that she picked it up again and decided to photograph the beautiful old building they were currently walking past. Unfortunately, when the picture was developed, the building was blurry and the person was clear.

"Who was it?" she asked softly, pretending to focus her lens on another building.

"Man goes by the name of Iliad, not exactly sane in the head, but does a good job for a local mafia," came Sark's reply through the earphones.

"The mafia? Since when did we play with the mafia? I thought we were strictly terrorist groups," she questioned.

"Yes, but the local mafia has what Sanko wants," Sark explained.

"What Sanko wants, Sanko gets," she smiled knowingly to herself, at least things still worked the way they used to, she and Sark _had_ been given explicit instructions to double cross the people that had possession they were collecting. "Ready when you are."

"I've been waiting for you," he replied teasingly.

"Yea right," she mumbled, before heading after the man who'd nearly walked into her.

0O0O0O0O0O0O

"Spotted Walker, she's not even bothering to hide," Sydney said softly into her coffee cup, as she watched the street corners from beneath the umbrella of an outside table at a local café.

It was almost that very moment that Walker glanced over and saw her observer. She lowered the camera and gave a small wink before putting her sunglasses back in place and continuing on her way.

"She's a decoy, keep an eye out for Sark, he must be somewhere nearby," Sydney hissed, with far more urgency as she dropped the money for the espresso and began following Walker down the alley Vaughn had disappeared down ten minutes before.

"I'm almost in," Vaughn's reply came after a moment.

The alley was small narrow and empty. Walker was gone, she couldn't tell where. It was bad, very bad. She'd taken the job of keeping an eye out for and distracting Walker, hopefully even arresting, but that wouldn't be possible if she couldn't even find the woman. Then, she noticed a door in a darker corner of the alley, where the sunlight just didn't reach. The door was closed, but the dirt in front of it had scrape marks, the door opened outward and had been opened recently.

It wasn't a difficult door to open, and slipping into the building wasn't hard. No one was around, it was old and abandoned. She heard movement above, the floors couldn't be that thick. Someone was on the second floor. Adjusting her grip on her gun, she carefully made her way to the stairs and began her assent.

0O0O0O0O0O0O

"This guy's letting me follow him, and I've got the city on my tail," she whispered as she leaned back into the wall at the top of the stairs.

The second floor was a single open room; the building couldn't have been anything more than an old industrial building, though its location was questionable. There were several people in the room, talking, chatting; the weather was beautiful out it seemed. At the bottom of the stairs was Sydney Bristow, at least that's who she'd been sure she'd seen at the café. The woman had been identical to the picture Sark had shown her of his 'nemesis.' She was trapped in a sense, though the cubby she'd tucked her self into could protect her from either if they decided to pass by, but not if they decided to pay attention to their surroundings too closely, thankfully there was a silencer attached to the gun in her hand should any of the surrounding people decide her cubby was of any interest.

"I'm at the top of the stairs across the room," his voice came, and she immediately looked across, imagining that she could see him tucked away in a space identical to her own. "Her partner is at the bottom of the stairs."

"Very symmetrical," she whispered, resisting the urge to laugh.

"Hello, gentlemen," Sark greeted, stepping into the room, no weapon drawn.

"Are you Sanko's man?" one of the men questioned, his English coming out in a thick Italian accent.

"Yes, you have the package?" Sark asked, in his most bored tone.

"You got the money?" the same man asked.

"Of course."

She closed her eyes for a moment. Sark had everything there covered, she'd just have to keep backup from the CIA, whatever the package was, they wouldn't get it if she had to kill them with her bare hands. They would not jeopardize her freedom, and her current freedom laid on every mission, at least until Darren could get everything worked out to keep her safe, then things would be different.

With her eyes closed, she forced herself to slip into the familiar training, pinpointing locations by sound. There was a mouse in the ceiling, scurrying ever so softly, she shuddered, she hated mice. Miss Bristow was slowly creeping up the stairs, she could obviously hear the conversation going on between Sark and the men over the package and the money. The whole building had to be able to hear it, every wall was nothing more than paper thin. The money was all there, and the package was on a table.

"Don't see why he'd go to so much trouble over a photo album, isn't even anything interesting," one of the men said, jokingly, of course they didn't get what it had to be, but she did, her eyes had instantly snapped open.

Sydney was too close to her hiding spot, she'd have to be taken gotten rid of, Sark could deal with her partner. Moving as quickly and silently as possible, she grabbed a knife from the small sheath tucked into her waist band and tucked her gun back into the camera case hanging off her shoulder. She wouldn't need her own gun, she could grab the other woman's. Sydney was closer, and Walker was in a corner.

"_Never get caught in a corner!" her teachers repeated year after year, soon to be replaced by her brother and countless others._

She'd prove them wrong.

Sydney stepped just in front of the cubby hole, just about to slip in and clear it, when she flew out, using the darkness of the staircase to her advantage. Far too quickly, her knife was resting just in front of Sydney's jugular. Then she reached out with her spare hand and took Sydney's gun.

"Look what I found playing on the staircase," she grinned mischievously at Sark, after forcing Sydney into the room, knife and gun in use to keep her from retaliating.

"She with you?" one of the men asked, pointing his gun at Sydney and Walker.

"The one with the knife is mine," Sark nodded, she'd interrupted at a bad moment, just when money was being exchanged, thankfully, Miss Bristow's presence was a blessing in disguise.

0O0O0O0O0O0O

They completed their exchange of money and package, and were about to part ways when Vaughn made his presence known. He had to save Sydney of course, and, somehow, try to get the package. The photo album had to be important for some reason or another, and it was their job to get it. They'd been compromised and still completed the mission on previous occasions, and this was a far less complex mission than any of the previous ones had been.

He was, thankfully, smart enough not to step right into the room. he was indeed badly out numbered, handicapped even more by Sydney being held at gun point by both one of the Italian men and Walker, who also had the sharp edge of a knife right against Sydney's neck. He would wonder how exactly Sydney managed to get caught, everything was so simple, and she was so good. It wasn't that Walker was better, but merely knew placement and movement in such a situation better, somehow.

He'd shot out the only light fixture in the rather dark room. It wasn't enough to leave the room in complete darkness with the large windows covering the walls, but it was enough to distract them. Everyone was distracted, except, of course, Sark and his accomplice, they'd been expecting every moment of it. Sydney moved to fight her way out of Walker's grasp, but the woman had already let go and ducked out of the way. While the Italians fought, Sark slipped through the group, easily dodging out of the way before any more guns were fired, and Walker grabbed the attaché case filled with the money. It was too easy. Sydney was doing her best to fight the Italian men from one side, while Vaughn hit the other, there were too many people to give them opportunity to go after Sark and Walker, and the Italian men were so distracted from the gunfire, they didn't really pay enough attention to notice the two slip out with everything till it was too late.

0O0O0O0O0O0O

They got out. They made it to the place where a car was ready for them to drive back to Rome. The trip wouldn't be _that_ long, but it was plenty of time to rest and relax, though they did stop a couple times to change cars and pick up some food. Through the first half of the trip, Sark refused to let her touch the package, knowing it was a photo album only lead to the knowledge that it was _probably_ hers. Then, he couldn't stop her. She was a force of nature, and quite a while was spent silently, as she flipped through the pages. Her face displayed that of a woman with no more tears to cry.

"Take me home," she said as they pulled into the city, clutching the book close to her chest.

"We have to hand it over," he told her.

"No," she snapped, "that bastard is not touching it. It's mine, I made it. It took me months to put it together. You may be able to just hand over what's yours, but I could never give him the pictures of my family. They're worth far more than any amount of money."

She was attacking him for giving over his inheritance without a fight. Then again, he hadn't been in a place to even pretend to fight. He'd been on their ground, in their grasps, they could kill him and fake the whole thing if they really wanted to, but he wasn't going to let her attack him for it. He swerved the car and hit the brakes, slamming her forwards, her seatbelt being the only thing keeping her from hitting the dashboard.

"You want to say something, say it. Don't dance around," he growled, his hands gripping the steering wheel.

"I couldn't live with myself if I let you or anyone else force me into handing all that's left of my family over to the man who destroyed it," she said simply, far calmer than she had been a moment before, she was emotional and no amount of rational thinking could get through to her.

"You have to," he told her.

"No, I don't, things should be in order by the time I arrive, I told you I was planning on leaving soon, now's it. Nothing's left here, except this. My home was burned, and a new one was built on top of it while I was gone. I'm living in an old safe house. I've got to build myself a new life, but I can't just forget the old one, and this is it, this is all that's left," she told him, looking through the windshield at the darkened roads.

"Alright," he agreed, she wasn't going after him, not really, she'd just been trying to get his attention. "I'm coming with you."

"No, you aren't, you've more exciting things to do," she laughed, knowing her own life would be plenty exciting, helping run the Endgame with her brother.

"Who says I can't do both?" he questioned rhetorically, knowing he could go with her and remain a member of the covenant, while he was obviously not in the inner circle, being manipulated into being part of the whole thing, he could work his way in.

"I didn't say you couldn't do anything," she smiled.

He took her hand in his, and steered the car back onto the road home. Things would be good someday. Not right away, they still had many obsticles to overcome, but they were on the path to a good life of their own.

**_I came across a fallen tree  
I felt the brances of it looking at me  
Is this the place we used to love?  
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of? _**

Oh simple thing where have you gone?  
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on  
So tell me when you're gonna let me in  
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin

And if you have a minute, why don't we go  
Talk about it somewhere only we know?  
This could be the end of everything  
So why don't we go  
Somewhere only we know?  
--Keane "Somewhere Only We Know"

TBC…


End file.
